Here's a great first project. Anyone can crochet this baby blanket; it's totally basic, and it works up super fast. Pictured at left, you can see how it looks when crocheted using pink baby yarn; Here are some additional photos showing the blanket crocheted in other colors . Sometimes a project that may seem unappealing when illustrated in one color takes on a new life with another color. Try it!

This striped lace baby blanket is a quick and easy crochet project. The stitch pattern is repetitive and easy to memorize, but the color changes keep things interesting. If you'd like to crochet the afghan exactly as shown, you'll need to print out the first three of the following pages. The fourth link introduces several more free V-Stitch instructions, different patterns and some excellent tutorials.

This baby blanket is part of a charming, but simple baby layette set designed by Erica Jackofsky. It's another good starter project because -- you may have noticed -- babies are small and require only small blankets.

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Easy Afghan Square Patterns

Afghan squares are fantastic portable crochet projects. Your granny may have used this method to make afghan crochet blankets. To create an afghan, you make a bunch of these and then join the squares together. The following afghan square patterns are all rated with a skill level of "easy." The joining part of the project is also pretty easy to do, as the associated article explains.